Where is your organization on this AI progression? And where are you?

Most school leaders I talk to are asking the wrong question about AI.

They're asking "should we allow it?" or "how do we stop kids from using it to cheat?" when the more important question — the one that actually determines whether your school thrives in the next decade — is this:

Where are we on the AI fluency curve, and where do we need to go?

Here's a simple framework I've been using with educators and leaders, and I want you to honestly place yourself and your organization within it.

Stage 1: Exposure. You know AI exists. You've maybe seen a demo. You might be skeptical, curious, angry, or quietly ignoring it. A lot of people (including a lot of educators) are still here.

Stage 2: Assistance. AI helps you do something you already do. Draft an email faster. Build a rubric. Scaffold a lesson. This is where many teachers first get started, and it's a legitimate and important entry point.

Stage 3: Co-Creation. Now you're using AI to make something better than you could have alone, like designing assessments, building curriculum structures, refining workflows. You're going beyond saving time, and expanding what's possible.

Stage 4: Judgment and Discernment. This is where things get real. You know when to use AI and when not to. You understand hallucinations, bias, ethical tradeoffs. You've thought about what should be AI-assisted, what should be AI-resistant, and why. This stage is non-negotiable before you bring any of this to students.

Stage 5: Creative Transfer. You're applying AI fluency to new and unexpected contexts including problems you haven't solved before, and situations you couldn't have anticipated. This is where innovation lives.

I've noticed that most organizations are scattered across these stages, often within the same building. You might have a few teachers quietly at Stage 3 while their colleagues are still at Stage 1, and nobody is talking about it.

That gap matters because you can't build a coherent culture around something when people are operating from completely different mental models of what it even is.

So here's my challenge for you:

Have an honest conversation in your next leadership or staff meeting. Where is your organization? Not where you want it to be, but where is it actually? What are the conversations you're hearing? What are the use cases people are describing? That's your data.

And then ask the harder question: What would it take to move one stage forward?

The good news is that fluency builds. It's a progression, not a personality trait. And your job as a leader isn't to be the AI expert, it's to create the conditions where people can move through these stages together, with purpose, and without leaving your most human work behind in the process.

Next Steps

This is exactly what we are doing with School Leaders from around the country, and world, in the AI-Ready School Leader Certification Program. Cohort 2 is finishing up tomorrow, and enrollment is open for Cohort 3 in the Fall. Check it out here!